It's been a totally frustrating few days – especially for a computer geeky person like me – I’ve felt like my left arm has been severed – how sad is that!!!

The problem started in earnest I think it was Wednesday morning. I’d been noticing that if I left my PC on, when I came back to it the mouse seemed to be frozen. But if I did a hard reboot it seemed to come Ok – that was until Wed. morning when it just wouldn’t go any further. I fiddled around for about 3 hours but just couldn’t get it to come right. So fast forward to today in South Beach Miami when I called into an electronics store and discussed the problem with them and he firmly believed I had a virus – he was at that point reasonably confident that he could save all my photos and docs to a pen drive and re-install. However when I picked up the laptop tonight - he told me that he had been unable to do that – the virus had progressed to the point where it wouldn’t let the PC access any of the USB ports – so every time he tried to save the docs and pictures the PC froze on him

. I’m not too bothered – I think I may have lost a few pics – but most of them are probably on Facebook and I have most of my photos saved on an external hard drive and also uploaded to Picasa web albums.

So enough of the laptop dramas – what about the holiday. Well I had this nice long post drafted on Tuesday night – and now it’s gone forever so I’ll have to try and rack my brains to tell you what happened when. But before I backtrack I"ll tell you about today – or actually yesterday since I got too tired to continue last night.

Yesterday our wonderful cruise came to an end. There were a few options for disembarkation – staggered from 7 to about 10am which meant putting your luggage out the previous night before 11pm with the numbered tag which would be given to you and then waiting in a central area till your number was called then disembarking and collecting your luggage from a central area in the terminal. Only problem with this was you have no idea whether you’ll be given a low number – called early – or a higher number called later. The other option was Express Disembark where you carry off all your own luggage and leave the ship between 6 and 7.30am. We decided that would be better for us so we got up early, did a final pack up, went for breakfast and then headed off the ship just after 7am

. We were through customs and ready to be picked up by 8am. However we needed to call our transfer to let them know to pick us up and our transfer wasn’t booked till 9am – however they were really obliging and said they’d be there within 30 minutes – which they were so no drama at all. We then had a lovely drive in our own private car to South Beach Miami. It took just over half an hour and we were to get to our hotel – Loews – what a beautiful hotel – right on the beach. However they didn’t have a room available for us and couldn’t tell us when one would be ready – only that guaranteed check in was at 4pm. So not overjoyed but left our luggage and set off to explore. We found the electronics shop and agreed that I’d bring my laptop back later in the day. After walking around for a while we headed back to the hotel about 11.30 to see if our room was ready - not yet but he did offer us a downgrade but we said we’d wait and get what we’d paid for – so we collected the laptop and took it back to the hospital and wandered round a bit more and then had lunch. You’ll see a picture of a pizza with today’s post – Craig asked them how big the pizza was and was told that it was fine for one person if you were hungry. He was hungry so ordered it – but it was a monster – no way could he have managed it. Anyway by now it was 2.30pm so we headed back again to the hotel and they said they now had our room available so off we went – but when we arrived at the room it contained 2 double beds – and our itinerary said queen or two double and by this time we were feeling a bit disappointed at the level of service – so when the porter arrived just after us I told him we weren’t happy with two double beds that we wanted at least a queen

. He was fabulous and got straight on the phone to reception and got us moved to a superb room on the 18th floor with magnificent views of Miami and the beach as well as a king bed, one day’s free internet and a proper coffee making machine! Sometimes it’s worth expressing your disappointment!

The hotel is really beautiful and has a wonderful pool area with umbrellas, sun loungers and attendants ready to cater to your every whim – although whims are expensive – cocktails are $14 for the cheapest then with your tax and gratuities on top of that work out about $18 – so restrained ourselves. But had a brilliant swim and a wee snooze on the sun loungers. We then walked to a nearby liquor store and bought a couple of cold beers and a bottle of wine and headed back to our room and relaxed for a while. We went out again at night to grab a bite of supper – neither of us were very hungry – and after wandering all along the Lincoln Centre – a lovely mall with lots of open air eating places and shops – all open to midnight – we ended up in a restaurant where we shared a fish and chips. It was quite funny we said we weren’t very hungry and just wanted to share and our waiter warned us that the portions were very small but we said we’d make do anyway. When it arrived there were four pieces of fish and a mountain of fries – they fish pieces weren’t that big but it would still have been a massive meal for one person and it hit the spot for us perfectly.

We then collected my laptop and headed back to bed – it had been a big day with 4.45am wake up so glad to tuck ourselves up in our king bed.